From Jane Hart, Founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies - the largest independent learning site on the Web

13 May 2011

12 July 2010

Suzanne Evans told me about this American history/food history blog that she bagan last year while writing a book about the presidents' favorite foods.

As an academic historian, the goal of her blog is to help parents and kids learn how to cook together, learn about history together, and hopefully help them create many great memories and meals together.

But this blog would be enjoyable for anyone - and elegantly presented too

28 May 2010

There have been two important blog posts today that are must-reads in my opinion - both of which contain references to the work of Dr Hermann Ebbinghaus, who pioneered the experimental study of memory.

Instructional design is not only seen as a core competency for
learning and development/training specialists, but it’s a huge industry,
too. Most learning vendors tout their ‘expertise in instructional
design’ as a key reason as to why we should engage them to produce
learning content. If we do so, then almost invariably their approach is
around developing content in an ‘instructionally-sound way’ to produce a
set of ‘learning interventions’.

I have a real problem with
this approach and the thinking behind it.

It simply isn’t
appropriate for the needs of the 21st century knowledge
industry, and is arguable even more inappropriate for those whose work
is carried out with their hands rather than with their minds.

Charles then goes on to explain that the mindset should be about process-based learning and not event-based learning, and how "the vast majority of structured learning is content-rich
and interaction-poor".

Charles also reminds us that "knowing something doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve learned it", and states that "Dr Ebbinghaus’ experiment revealed we suffer an exponential ‘forgetting
curve’ and that about 50% of context-free information is lost in the
first hour after acquisition if there is no opportunity to reinforce it
with practice".

But this all leads to the main point that Charles makes ...

"We need designers who understand that learning comes from experience,
practice, conversations and reflection, and are prepared to move away
from massaging content into what they see as good instructional design.
Designers need to get off the content bus and start thinking about,
using, designing and exploiting learning environments full of
experiences and interactivity."

"a fundamental truth in memory
theory, totally ignored by most educators and trainers. Most fixed
’courses’ or ‘lectures’ take no notice of the phenomenon, condemning
much of their effort to the world of lost
memories".

24 March 2010

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one
of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for
doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical
Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it
was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer
and of software.

What is Ada Lovelace Day?

It is an international day of blogging to
celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. My blogging tribute today goes to Mary Somerville.

Who was Mary Somerville?

Mary Fairfax Somervillewas born in 1780 in Scotland. She was a
science writer and polymath and, as Wikipedia puts it, was working "at a time when women's participation in science was discouraged".

Here is a summary of her life and work using quotes from the Wikipedia entry:

"She
studied mathematics
and astronomy,
and was the second woman scientist to receive recognition in the United
Kingdom after Caroline Herschel.

Having been requested by Lord Brougham to translate for the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge the Mécanique Céleste of
Laplace, she greatly popularized its form, and its publication in 1831,
under the title of The Mechanism of the Heavens, at once made her
famous.

Her other works are the On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences
(1834), Physical Geography (1848), and Molecular and
Microscopic Science (1869). In 1835, she and Caroline Herschel
became the first women members of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Much of the popularity of her writings was due to her clear and crisp
style and the underlying enthusiasm for her subject which pervaded them.

She also invented the commonly used variables from algebraic maths.

Mary Somerville died in 1872 (in Naples in Italy) at the grand old age of 91, unlike poor Ada who died at 36.

She was an intriguing and inspiring lady; and Somerville College at Oxford University was
named after her. As it turns out I have also been surprised to find out that there are some personal connections too!

29 December 2009

In an earlier posting on the Edublog Awards I said that I was disappointed to see only a few workplace bloggers shortlisted in the Corporate Education category. I would therefore like to pay my own tribute to the following 20 people, who either in their blogs and/or in their tweets have provided me with inspiration in their thoughts about workplace learning in 2009.

Firstly my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance (here's our blog), who have provided me with vision, stimulation and encouragement:

These people all appear in my 100 Learning Professionals to follow in 2009 - bloggers and/or tweeters who I consider provide information,
inspiration and/or interaction on a range of
educational and workplace learning topics.

02 August 2009

26 January 2008

If you like Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day (JELPOD), you might like my latest blog - Inspring Iris.

Whilst researching new e-learning tools and resources, I frequently come across other interesting and fascinating resources of more general interest. In the past I have discarded them, but this week I decided to set up a new blog to record them: Inspiring Iris.

There are already 14 postings on it, but resources that I have found particularly interesting are:

Rouxbe - video recipes deliver a revolutionary online instructional cooking experience that will guide you step-by-step through each delicious recipe

FloorPlanner - the easiest, quickest, and best looking way to create and share interactive floorplans

RenGen - short for Renaissance Generation, is a cultural movement created by the confluence of art, education, entertainment and business. This is the book by Patricia Martin

I can't promise to post a new resource every day as here at JELPOD, but it will be pretty regularly.

We shall both be posting regularly on a range of topics related to the design, development and delivery of learning projects, for example current issues that are challenging the industry, examples of good practice, and more controversial topics of how the learning business needs to change.

With over 45 years of experience between the two of us and an extensive network of contacts in the UK, Europe, US and in other parts of the world, we bring a broad perspective to our work and one that ensures that new thinking and best practice from around the world can be best be integrated into UK organisational culture.